Elvira will do anything to compete with her impossibly beautiful stepsister. In a fairytale kingdom where beauty is a brutal business, she uses blood, sweat, and tears to capture the Prince's attention.
"If visually the film is a disturbing spectacle, narratively it is a sharp reflection on the desire to conform. Elvira is not an antagonist: she is a victim. True "ugliness," the film suggests, is not aesthetic but social: it is the result of a world that rewards only those who adapt, those who transform, those who erase themselves to please others. The Ugly Stepsister is a scathing social commentary, disguised as a Nordic fairy tale. And while Disney flounders in soulless remakes, underground European cinema dares, shakes, and provokes reflection. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it is one of those films that defines an aesthetic and charts a course for the feminist horror of the future." (Gioia Majuna)
